Apr 15, 2014 Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival 2014 Preview
Last week, I attended the final meeting of the Programming Committee for this year’s Los Angeles Asian Pacific Film Festival. Next month’s screenings will be the thirtieth annual showcase of movies, shorts, and other cinematic endeavors presented by the Little Tokyo-based collective of activists and entertainment insiders. I belong to neither camp but am flattered and honored to be included, and firmly believe that film festivals continue to play a vital role in the promotion, evolution, and appreciation of cinema–especially in the digital age. Easier editing, cheaper distribution, and instant access can be helpful but certainly don’t make mentorship, promotion, or curation obsolete.
The most enjoyable part of my volunteer position is getting to introduce screenings, and sometimes even conducting Q&As with filmmakers. This year, I will have the honor of presenting three very different movies:
Friday, May 2
CGV2 at 9:45
The Pinkie (Japan, 2014) – Lisa Takeba’s International Fantastic Film Festival-winning full-length feature starts off with a serious bang. A low-life slacker is caught sleeping with a gangster moll and gets his pinkie cut off as punishment. The severed phalange flies through the air and is miraculously discovered by the lowlife’s childhood stalker who uses it to clone her object of desire. The slacker, his more upstanding clone, and the stalker form a mutant love triangle that does battle with the yakuza thugs.
Although the taut piece is a dynamo of brilliant color, this definitely ain’t no art movie. The extremely creative violence and jaw-dropping brutality will impress the hardest-core gorehounds: Cookie cutters are used like throwing stars, a hand blender becomes a dental tool, and a man suffocates on his own boogers. Fans of Seijun Suzuki, Takashi Miike, and Katsuhito Ishii’s more outlandish crime movies will dig it, and so will lovers of Sushi Typhoon’s fun-loving gore. I’m really stoked that the filmmaker will be in attendance for a sure-to-be-lively Q&A after the movie’s L.A. debut, and there will also be a short, “Unusual Targets,” which will also be represented in the post-screening discussion.
Sunday, May 4
CGV2 at 12:00 p.m.
Blue Bustamante (Philippines, 2013)) – Writer and director Miko Livelo takes a downer of a subject (Filipino Overseas Workers) and skillfully and lovingly mashes it up with a tribute to Japanese sentai programs from the ’80s in which giant, colorful robots save the world from skyscraper-sized rubber-suited monsters over cardboard cities. The weapons are cool, the villains are awesome, and the low-production value of this indie flick is refreshing compared to the glossy-but-soulless CG that passes for children’s entertainment these days. Even the accurately cheesy soundtrack music reinforces that Livelo is no poseur trying to cash in on the nostalgia of Asian Boomers with money but a true fan of the genre.
Yet no matter how much fun it is to see adults in baggy tights pretending to pilot a robot or know karate, the movie wouldn’t be watchable if Livelo weren’t able to humanize the plight of George, capably portrayed by a straight-faced Joem Bascon. Independent Filipino cinema isn’t easy to see–not even in the Philippines–and I’m very excited about getting to see this movie on a big screen. It’s as geeky as it is touching as it is cool.
Sunday, May 4
DGA2 at 8:15 p.m.
Lordville (USA, 2014) – Arthouse name Rea Tajiri stumbled upon Lordville during a long bicycle ride. Something about the New York hamlet’s ruins, energy, and history called out to the award-winning filmmaker. So she purchased a house in the rustic area and proceeded to make a deceptively simple, elegant, and haunting documentary about it.
Beautifully wide-angled static shots capturing the omnipresence of nature and a handful of humans (and mannequins) roaming among the spirits generate a calm, eerie ambience. It’s not unlike the feeling of an Apichatpong Weerasthakul flick–except that the all-enveloping forest’s beauty and power are real rather than surreal. Tajiri will be in attendance for a Q&A the movie’s L.A. premiere, and I wonder if she will remember me from way back when?
Of course, there are other movies that I recommend…
Awesome Asian Bad Guys (USA, 2014) – Super-Villain Team-Up with The National Film Society dudes, Tamlyn Tomita, Al Leong, and others…
Concrete Clouds (Thailand, 2014) – Apichatpong Weerasethakul’s go-to editor balances art and melodrama
Final Recipe (South Korea/Thailand, 2014) – Epic Pan-Asian feast by Gina Kim featuring Michelle Yeoh.
Firestorm (Hong Kong, 2013) – HK crime flick with Andy Lau, Gordon Lam, and my pal Terence Yin.
How to Fight in Six Inch Heels (US/Vietnam, 2013) – Good guy/epic filmmaker Ham Tran makes a chick flick!
Once Upon a Time in Vietnam (Vietnam, 2013) – My homie Dustin Nguyen’s new martial arts Western!
Rebel Without a Cause (USA, 1955) – Before the Paula Abdul video, there was this.
The Road to Fame (China, 2013) – Documentary about a Chinese Academy of Drama putting on the Broadway show.
Shift (Philippines, 2013) – Very cool, gender-bending indie flick that takes place in a Manila call center.
To Be Takei (USA, 2014) – From Sulu to Stern, from actor to activist. With my pal Jessica Sanders’ “George & Brad Live Long and Prosper.”
And there is so much more… Browse the schedule and get tickets at laapff.festpro.com. Seeya there!